Click on photos to enlarge.
Again, no color modification has been done. These are the actual colors of this outrageous sunset!!!
Lake Chapala Sunset, Jan 23, 2021
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Rice-Burns
Rice-Burns
After the engagement and the wedding bash,
after opening the presents and putting out the trash,
the groom fell into reverie, staring at the dark
waiting for revelation to ignite a spark.
All his cache of memories no longer served their function.
He longed to hear his bride murmuring words of tender unction.
But she retired early, exhausted from the stress
of all the machinations since she had answered “Yes!”
Thus did another wedding night turn out to be a dud
as wedding over-planning nipped romance in the bud.
“That” Girl
“That” Girl
I imagine her a gabble-ratchet, such a vocal child—
talkative and stubborn, clever, loud and wild.
Loyal to her friends, solid without a glitch.
It was not her way to waffle or to snitch.
All who entered her domain followed where she led.
If they were her arms and legs, surely, she was their head,
ruling her world with personality and *wit.
All her minions swarmed around to be part of it.
If her town had had a castle, she’d have been its resident.
Instead she had to just make do with Vice-president!
*”Why is KamalaHarris the only person that laughs at her jokes… always way to long and way too hard?” Mr Trump’s son asked. “You wouldn’t know a joke if one raised you,” she wrote back.
Prompt words today are president, snitch, gabble-ratchet and personality. Image by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash, used with permission.
GABBLE-RATCHET. As well as being an old English dialect word for a noisy child, a gabble-ratchet is any nocturnal bird (particularly geese) that makes a lot of noise at night, once considered to be an ill omen.
Standing Out in the Crowd: FOTD, Jan 21, 2021
Knowing
Knowing
We cast long shadows in the sun,
but shorter as the day is done,
and when we shrink into our selves,
placing our souls upon their shelves,
what shadows last? Are our souls
made of Teflon or are they bowls?
The world’s vendettas should be left
back in the wide world lest their heft
leave our spotless souls bereft
and our inner natures cleft.
Those whom we honor with boundless fame
and lionize in face and name
might sport a very great divide
if we were to see inside—
their nature split between what they
profess to be—what they might say
and what their true intentions are.
Their true motives might be far
from what we perceive as their intentions.
We cannot know a soul’s dimensions
except by looking at the facts
of how the outer person acts.
What they profess that they believe
may often be used to deceive.
But heart-to-heart, it is absurd
to think truth is conveyed by word.
Some part of us knows deeper meaning
devoid of boasting, strutting, preening.
The soul requires no advertisement,
seeks no excess aggrandizement.
In our soul of souls we know
what is authentic and what’s for show.
That shadow that we cast without
within has very little clout.
This poem is both a commentary and assessment of those who have lately been much in the arena and about ourselves–including myself.
Prompt words today are long shadows, vendetta and lionize.
Ta ta, Mr. Trump (Heading South)
Ta ta, Mr. Trump (Heading South)
Pundits agree that during transition
wit will be sharpened in the position
of the oval office whereas farther South
statements that issue from the orange guy’s mouth
might lower the level of logical statements,
bringing on overall massive abatements
of logic and reason, of wit and good will
formerly missing up there on the hill.
We’re forming a queue to bid him good bye,
as we trade him for a more logical guy
who lacks his baloney and blustering ways.
We’re headed, we hope, for happier days.
And we wish for the happiest final conclusion:
that his family joins him in his seclusion.
Word prompts today are sharpened, pundit, queue and transition. All images from Unsplash, Used with permission.
Here is an article about Mr. Trump’s new “home”–or so he wishes: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/home-decor/a7144/mar-a-lago-history/
And here is an article about the wishes of his new neighbors in Florida: Florida:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/17/trump-mar-a-lago-club-neighbors-florida
Bill Blass Blues
Bill Blass Blues
My wife is unfaithful. She’s out most every night
with another famous man—out in open sight.
She doesn’t want to hide it. She wants her friends to see
that she’s at every swish affair, clad fashionably.
Every Hermes bag and pair of winklepicker shoes
has contributed its bit to my costume blues.
Countless Dior dresses and each Givenchy blouse
added up to why we had to sell the house.
I’d taken out my equity and sold off all my stocks,
I locked her in her room, but she only picked the locks.
When I cancelled all her cards, she just applied for others,
and when I closed out all of those, she asked to use her mother’s.
I am a closet pauper. As you might suppose,
challenged by my wife’s outlandish lust for clothes.
If only her love affairs were with lesser men
than Michael Kors or Givenchy, Dior or Ralph Lauren.
If only she could lighten up and buy her clothes at Ross’s
perhaps I could pay off my loans and modify my losses!
Prompt words today were lighten, challenge, winklepicker and equity.
Bougainvillea: Flower of the Day, Jan 18, 2021
The Artist at Rest in Switzerland
The Artist at Rest in Switzerland
The picture shows him looking out over Lake Lucerne.
For once, no tension on his face, no furrows of concern.
The snow up on the mountain top echoes his beard and hair,
but no strategies of line or form are here for him to bear.
His nut-brown arms and hands at rest, touching no wood or clay,
His eyes collecting images—each thrust of rock, each ray
of light that dances on the lake. The murmured low of cattle.
The fisherman out on the lake—their laughter and their prattle.
We’ve come to rest in this green land, tired of our travel,
to calm the tension of the road and let our thoughts unravel.
Flowers, lake and greenery, mountains, light and cloud
help us to express our thoughts without speaking aloud.
For once he does not recreate what nature has created.
His need for shaping elements for this short time’s abated.
I know his thoughts as he knows mine, and so we are at peace.
Our best communication sometimes happens when words cease.
Prompt words today are nut-brown, strategy, snow and concern.
It was 1986–a year after we’d met and some months before we married. We spent the summer touring Europe via car and by the time we reached Switzerland, the tension had mounted. It was hard-going traveling from country to country where we knew none of the languages. Bob felt insecure away from his usual realm. I felt pressured with having to read maps and make all the decisions while he simply had to aim the car and grew unsympathetic with my occasional misdirections. He didn’t like the food. The French didn’t like us, so moments after we crossed the border into France, we veered back into Switzerland and decided to spend the rest of our time before departure in Switzerland instead of France.
It was the right decision. Bob loved the wienerschnitzel and the calm view of the lake and mountains. I loved not having to make decisions. We rented the bottom level of a house for two weeks. It overlooked the lake and the mountainside where the owners of the house ran their cattle. A telescope in our living room was directed toward the cattle who were virtually unreachable by road. If the snow got too high in the winter, they airlifted bales of hay to them, dropping them from a helicopter. My earlier decision of a few weeks before, when I couldn’t wait to get home from Europe so I never had to see this guy again softened, and seven months later, we were married. Within a year, I, too, was an artist and we made our living for the next 14 years doing art together. In the 16 years I knew my husband, this time in Europe was the only time I knew him not to be creating, yet for an artist, even the art of living can be a creative experience as they draw images and other sensory details into the wellspring of their creativity.
JAN 16, 2021 SPECTACULAR SUNSET
Click on photos to enlarge.
I woke up after an afternoon nap to this amazing sunset. No color alteration has been done. These are the authentic colors of the sunset. I took three times this many shots, but couldn’t cull it down any further.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 